“I fear you are correct, sister,” said Miss Bay. “For once. Who knows what other mischief he got up to in father’s library.”
Now Miss Bunch moaned, but her sister grabbed her arm and dragged her into the forest to hide from pirates.
TO MIRWELLTON
It hadn’t been easy saying farewell to Damian and Lady as they stood arm and arm on the front porch of their house, Ero sitting beside them. Fergal especially looked melancholy as he and Karigan set off, their saddlebags bursting with food from Lady’s kitchen.
Gus and Jericho guided them on the confusing network of trails to the main road that led to Mirwellton, and there they waved good-bye, leaving the Riders on their own. If Fergal was sad to leave the Frosts, Karigan dreaded this leg of the journey, at the end of which she would find her old school nemesis, Timas Mirwell, now lord-governor of Mirwell Province. He’d been spoiled and mean-spirited back in school, and she hated to think what a little power had done to him now. And here she was, more the commoner than ever in her Rider uniform.
It seemed appropriate that on the morning of their departure, a dusting of snow covered the hardening ground.
A week after leaving the Frosts, Karigan and Fergal arrived on the outskirts of Mirwellton beneath a sun that shed only cold light. The streets were churned and muddy and the buildings that lined it had a tired look, settled and sagging on their foundations, in need of a good whitewashing or fresh coat of paint. Above the roofs rose the blocky keep, which was the seat of power for the province’s lord-governor, scarlet pennants streaming from the towers.
Though it was Karigan’s right as a king’s messenger to request lodging there, she had no interest in sharing the same roof as Timas Mirwell. She’d seek rooms at an inn for her and Fergal.
As they rode toward the center of town, Karigan knew she was being childish to worry about Timas in this way, but she’d never really gotten over his mockery of her and his bullying ways. She almost laughed out loud at herself. She’d faced down warriors and thugs, even battled groundmites, not to mention dealt with spirits of the dead, and yet Timas Mirwell still held this power over her, to heighten her anxiety and fill her with loathing. She could not let on about her feelings, however, especially to Timas. She would embody the professional demeanor of a Green Rider to shield herself against anything he might say or do to ridicule her. Her uniform would be her strength, not a symbol of servitude.
They entered the town’s main square, which was paved and busy with shoppers. It was market day and the merchants hawked their wares in booths and beside carts. Dead chickens hung from one, while a nearby merchant haggled over sheep skins. Carcasses of pigs and cows were for sale, as well as tools and blankets and leather goods. Some dispirited looking farmers attended their carts of squashes, turnips, parsnips, and potatoes. Their supply was meager, and Karigan remembered Mirwell had had a poor season.
Nothing good ever comes out of Mirwell, was a common saying outside the province, and Karigan heard it most often uttered by her father. But it wasn’t the fault of the common people, and she felt sorry for the farmers.
Looming over the market was an immense fountain with a statue in its midst, of a heroic mounted figure of some Mirwell or other in full armor bearing a war hammer. The statue might have inspired more awe in Karigan if pigeons weren’t lined up on the war hammer and hadn’t left white splotches all over the warrior’s stern face. One pigeon roosted on the statue’s helm like a living plume.
Karigan and Fergal dismounted in front of a likely looking inn on the town square called The Fountain. She secured Condor to the hitching post and stretched her back, watching shoppers moving from stall to stall. She wouldn’t mind taking a look around herself. She could bring back some trinkets to amuse Mara.
She was thinking about how much currency she had left when Fergal gasped behind her. The next thing she knew, he was grabbing her arm and dragging her around the corner of the inn into a shadowed close.
“Fergal, what the—”
“Shhh!” he admonished her. “Did you see it?” His eyes were wide and he was visibly shaking.
“See what?” Karigan asked.
“Her.”
“Her who?”
“Out there,” he said, pointing toward the square.
Karigan went to the close entrance to look, but Fergal grabbed her again and yanked her back. “Careful,” he whispered.
What had gotten into him? Karigan pressed against the side of the inn and peered into the square. All was as it had been before—shoppers visiting vendors and pigeons sitting on the statue. A man bargained for a leather pouch at a nearby stall, and another purchased a pumpkin from a farmer. The scene was perfectly normal and could have been drawn in any Sacoridian town on market day.
“Fergal, I don’t see anything.”
He pointed a trembling finger toward the square, his face gone pale and perspiration beading on his temple. “There.”
She saw a cluster of people, a man balancing a towering stack of hats for sale on his head, and a woman paying for a new stoneware pitcher. A little girl walked hand-in-hand with an elderly woman, her grandmother perhaps, as they browsed beautifully dyed yarns.
“Fergal—” When she turned to speak to him, he staggered against the wall.
“I–I don’t feel so good,” he said, and he fell to his knees and retched up his midday meal, and maybe breakfast, too. He hadn’t complained of feeling sick before, and she was pretty sure he would have.